Murder ballads and other legends / by Bohumil Hrabal ; translated by Timothy West.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hrabal, Bohumil, 1914-1997, author.

Contributor:

West, Timothy, 1969- translator, writer of introduction.

Standardized Title:

Short stories. Selections. English

Language:

Czech

English

Subjects (All):

Hrabal, Bohumil, 1914-1997--Translations into English.

Hrabal, Bohumil.

Hrabal, Bohumil, 1914-1997.

Short stories, Czech.

Genre:

Translations.

Physical Description:

viii, 109 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Bloomington, Indiana : Three String Books, 2018.

Language Note:

Originally published in Czech as Moryt�aty a legendy.

Summary:

"This translation is based on the first edition of Moryt�aty a legendy, published in 1968 by �Ceskoslovensk�y spisovatel. The images that accompany each story are from woodcuts originally created for old broadside ballads and reproduced as illustrations for that first edition. Moryt�aty a legendy arrived in the early months of the Prague Spring . . . . Moryt�aty a legendy was a collection of unpublished short stories, some new and some old. The author's "post scripts" contain his comments at the time of publication and represent a self-effacing running commentary on his method, which mines pub tales and urban folklore for material. The post scripts offer everything from needed explanatory notes ("A Legend Played on Strings Stretched between Cradle and Coffin") to outright mystification ("The Ballad of the Queen of the Night") to an epilogue four times the length of the story itself ("The Legend of Egon Bondy and Vladim�irek"). The "Vladim�irek" epilogue provides a foretaste of The Tender Barbarian (N�e�zn�y barbar, completed 1973), Hrabal's autobiographical tribute to the artist Vladim�ir Boudn�ik, who would die suddenly at the end of 1968. At the book's heart is "The Legend of Cain," a bleak story written nearly twenty years earlier and the basis for the novella Closely Watched Trains (Ost�re sledovan�e vlaky, 1965)" -- From the translator's introduction.

Contents:

Translator's introduction

A ballad written by my readers

The legend of Egon Bondy and Vladim�irek

The ballad of a pig banquet

The legend of lammertz needles

A May murder ballad, or it was a quiet night in May

The legend of Julinka

The legend of Cain

The ballad of the queen of the night

A legend played on strings stretched between cradle and coffin

The ballad of the world travelers

A ballad on the murder of Ane�zka Hr�uzov�a

Ballad of a public execution

Post-script.

Contains:

Murder ballads.

ISBN:

9780893574802

0893574805

OCLC:

1028612282